Millennial Grape. Stunning green grapes lithograph. Passmore c1904.

by Passmore, Deborah Grisscom

Wonderful Green Grapes antique print (print only).

Original chromolithograph by Deborah Grisscom Passmore (1840-1911). Printed in New York circa 1904 by The Sackett and Wilhelms Company for the Yearbook of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Prior to photography, between 1897 and 1925, artists were employed by USDA to create watercolours and lithographs of fruit and vegetables that were growing in the U.S. These charming illustrations were printed to promote cultivation of crops, but as there was not a large circulation they are rarely seen today.

D.G. Passmore received a strict Quaker education prior to moving from Delaware to study at the School of Design and Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. She was a fine botanical artist, worked in the U.S.A. Division of Pomology for 19 years and became principal artist. Most of the accomplished botanical artists were women as art was considered an acceptable female pursuit, and government illustrator was one of the few employments available to women artists.

Image size is 23 x 14cm (9 x 5.5 inches). (Above is the same grape, framed in a superb old-style gilt veneered frame.)